Geography

An island in the Indian Ocean off the southeast tip of India, Sri Lanka
is about half the size of Alabama. Most of the land is flat and rolling;
mountains in the south-central region rise to over 8,000 ft (2,438 m).

Government

Republic.

History

Indo-Aryan emigration from India in the 5th century
B.C.
came to form the largest ethnic group on Sri
Lanka today, the Sinhalese. Tamils, the second-largest ethnic group on the
island, were originally from the Tamil region of India and emigrated
between the 3rd century
B.C.
and
A.D.
1200. Until colonial powers controlled Ceylon
(the country's name until 1972), Sinhalese and Tamil rulers fought for
dominance over the island. The Tamils, primarily Hindus, claimed the
northern section of the island and the Sinhalese, who are predominantly
Buddhist, controlled the south. In 1505 the Portuguese took possession of
Ceylon until the Dutch India Company usurped control (1658–1796).
The British took over in 1796, and Ceylon became an English Crown colony
in 1802. The British developed coffee, tea, and rubber plantations. On
Feb. 4, 1948, after pressure from Ceylonese nationalist leaders (which
briefly unified the Tamil and Sinhalese), Ceylon became a self-governing
dominion of the Commonwealth of Nations.

S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike became prime minister in 1956 and championed
Sinhalese nationalism, making Sinhala the country's only official language
and including state support of Buddhism, further marginalizing the Tamil
minority. He was assassinated in 1959 by a Buddhist monk. His widow,
Sirimavo Bandaranaike, became the world's first female prime minister in
1960. The name
Ceylon
was changed to
Sri Lanka
(“resplendent island”) on May 22, 1972.

The Tamil minority's mounting resentment toward the Sinhalese
majority's monopoly on political and economic power, exacerbated by
cultural and religious differences, erupted in bloody violence in 1983.
Tamil rebel groups, the strongest of which were the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers, began a civil war to fight for separate
nation.

President Ranasinghe Premadasa was assassinated at a May Day political
rally in 1993, when a Tamil rebel detonated explosives strapped to
himself. Tamil extremists have frequently resorted to terrorist attacks
against civilians. The next president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, vowed to
restore peace to the country. In Dec. 1999, she was herself wounded in a
terrorist attack. By early 2000, 18 years of war had claimed the lives of
more than 64,000, mostly civilians.